Faye was still thinking about Zach when she saw a large shadow move towards a bush a few metres away from the path. She froze. It had disappeared but she could hear the tip-tip-tip sound of something walking. She stared towards the dark vegetation. Was something stalking her? The leopard? Should she use the torch? She slowly reached into her pocket to remove it. The animal stepped into a space between the plants and paused.

She noticed its ears first. They were rabbit-like but longer, narrower and stood erect, pointing high above its rounded back. The animal had a long, pig-like snout and a strange kangaroo-shaped tale. An aardvark. Nocturnal vacuumer of termites. Faye and the aardvark looked at one another for several seconds and then, without undue hurry, the animal continued walking. Faye, breathing once more, watched it go.

“Nice to meet you,” she whispered into the night.

Faye imagined telling Clare about the aardvark and how she’d believed that it might be a leopard.

“Please, make that possible,” she said.

She pictured how they’d laugh—Clare able to do so without restraint by then—as they agreed how far she had come since fleeing from the pigs just a few days earlier. How incredible it was that she, the woman who had panicked at the sight of a few wild pigs, had seen baboons, Knysna loeries, eagles, duiker, aardvark and the claw marks of a leopard, and had lived to love to tell the tale. How was it possible so much had changed for her in so short a time, when it had taken so long for her to see the truth that lay between her and Derek? How was it possible that putting the wilderness between them would bring such clarity?

She remembered the look on her husband’s face when she’d called his name at the river. For a moment, she’d thought he was pleased to see she had returned and her anger had subsided. He limped to the bank and called across to her.

“Thank God you’ve come back,” he shouted. “Help me get across so that I can get to Clare.”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous. You cannot cross.” She felt the anger rise again like bile.

“I can. At the rope.” He gestured upstream. “I did it two days ago. Even rescued Di.”

“I’m not going to help you cross, Derek. I want to—”

“Then why did you return? What are you doing here? Oh, I get it. You don’t want me near Clare. You’re jealous and insecure—”

“Stop it! I don’t know what’s going on and why you would tell Geoffrey that Clare was your daughter—”

He froze for moment. “Because she—”

“No! I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care about that now.” Faye was shouting, her hands over her ears.

“What? I don’t—”